Understanding Mistakes
by NoctePluvia
Summary: None of the Guardians knew what happened after they sent Jack away during the Easter fiasco. Maybe understanding that will help them form a more solid relationship with Jack.
1. Relationships

**This is a three part story. The memories are mostly canon compliant, but I added a bit to Pitch's speech. You know, for the angst.**

Trust is fragile. This is not an opinion so much as a fact, a commonly held belief among the majority of people. Typically, trust is not given much thought until it is questioned. This is because trust, like many connections, is built intuitively and subconsciously- a tenuous bond that grows stronger over the course of a relationship without conscious effort needed from either party. As long as the relationship is strong, the trust will develop on its own, naturally.

Unfortunately, trust is less tenacious than most other aspects of a relationship. Anger can be forgotten; wrongs can be forgiven; but trust is nearly impossible to rebuild.

Luckily, there was no trust between Jack and the Guardians. After all, trust cannot be formed without the foundation of a relationship. And aside from a few incidents where Jack had crossed paths with the Guardians – the most recent being the infamous Easter blizzard of '68 – there was nothing to suggest that they even knew each other, much less that there were any sorts of connections involved. Sure, Jack and the Guardians knew of each other, but that was mostly though stories and legends, of which the most important information was left out and the less pertinent exaggerated. No, there were no true connections, no actual bonds upon which trust might have been built.

By the time the Guardians decided to get to know Jack, approximately 300 years after Jack's 'birth,' it was too late, at least immediately. Maybe 'too late' is the wrong phrase, it was just… really bad timing? The problems were too large, the danger too imminent, for time to build such frivolous things as relationships and trust. Perhaps those could come later, after Pitch was dealt with, but during the first proper introductions nobody had the luxury of time; the Guardians had to trust that Jack, while chaotic and seemingly amoral, would fight with them, for his memories if nothing else. Jack had to trust that the Guardians would have to have his back during any fights, because surely their indifference to his existence would have to fade, however briefly, if he was to find himself in immediate danger of their sworn enemy?

As it would happen, during their adventures fighting Pitch and helping Tooth collect teeth, everyone did grow closer. It was an unorthodox arrangement to be sure, and none of the relationships formed could necessarily be called 'strong,' but it was a huge improvement from the previous few centuries.

After Pitch was defeated, there was an unconscious but major shift in Jack's relationship with his fellow Guardians. Instead of being united against a common enemy, their relationships were now built on Jack's newly formed status as a guardian and the bonding time implied in the formation of that status. Everyone had generally returned to their normal routines, with the exception that all of the Guardians decided to remain closer; both to each other and to the children they were meant to protect. This provided ample opportunity for Jack and the other Guardians to get to know each other better, and for real relationships to be formed.

Unfortunately, building relationships is inherently hard; compounded with their less than stellar history, it would take a long time for Jack and the Guardians to truly trust each other.

* * *

Oi, mate, it's only been three weeks!" Bunnymund said as he hopped out of a rabbit hole in the middle of North's workshop. "What else could have possibly happened for you to use the Borealis again already?"

"Yeah North, can we make this quick? The sun's setting in the western hemisphere and you know how busy it gets in the summer." Toothiana didn't wait for a reply as she turned around and started giving orders to the baby teeth buzzing around her.

Sanderson used his dream sand to create a question mark above his head, a confused and mildly concerned look on his face.

"It is about Jack," North said in his booming, attention-grabbing voice.

"Jack?" Tooth looked over in surprise, momentarily forgetting her job.

"Where is that little bugger, anyway?" Bunny asked irritably. "He knows he's supposed to be here. If that snowflake thinks he can slack off on his responsibilities already, he's got another thing coming. Well I'll-"

"_Bunny_," North said sharply. "Enough. Jack is currently sleeping in a spare room. I wanted to use this time to talk to all of you, while Jack is now here."

"But why? Did something happen? Is something wrong?" Tooth shooed off the last few of her fairies, trusting them to remember the schedule. She had been working on that recently, passing along some of the responsibility so that she would have a chance to live in the present.

"Nothing happened. And I don't think that anything is _wrong_, really, it's more that…" North paused, looking up at the moon in the sky, as if contemplating his next words carefully. "Have any of you noticed anything… odd about Jack? Or that he doesn't act the way that you would expect him too?"

Sandy looked more confused, the sand above him morphing from a snowflake, to a question mark, to a dolphin, and back to a snowflake.

"Odd? What are you talking about, North?" Tooth looked between North and MiM anxiously, as if the moonlight to hold all the answers.

"Yeah, mate, you're not making a good lot of sense right now," Bunny for his part was at least making a conscious effort to understand what North was saying, instead of writing off anything having to do with Jack as 'mischief' like he normally did. "Frostbite's been irritating as usual for me."

"I am not talking in terms of his attitude," North explained, still struggling with what he meant to say. "I meant as if Jack sometimes acts… distant. Or as if he does not feel as comfortable as he should around us."

Tooth looked surprised. "Well yeah, he acts distant sometimes, but that's probably just because he still barely knows us. He's only been a Guardian for three weeks, after all."

"I know," North said quickly. "It is just that I expected him to get used to us a bit faster than this."

"I know what you mean, mate." Bunny, surprisingly, was the next to speak. "He still acts like an outsider. Like he's not part of the group."

"Yes, exactly!" North exclaimed. "That is it. Jack acts apart from our group."

Sandy got their attention again, forming images of Jack and the rest of the Guardians, with Jack separated from the group. A clock spun between them.

"Sandy's right," Tooth said sadly. "Three hundred years alone is a lot to get over. He's probably just still getting used to all the sudden changes."

"But I still feel as if something's wrong," North insisted. "He acts different around us than he does the children, and even the Baby Tooth. I feel as if he still does not trust us."

Bunny looked a bit uncomfortable, while Tooth blushed slightly. "I guess that probably makes sense. We haven't really given him a reason to trust us, have we?" she said.

Sandy was annoyed. This conversation was reaching the point where Sandy always got left out. After the battle with Pitch, Sandy had been hard-pressed to find out what happened while he was gone. It was as if nobody wanted to talk about, like it was something better forgotten despite the fact that it obviously still mattered.

It was at this point that Sandy brought up the same images that had ended the conversation in the past; a cloud of sand growing smaller and disappearing; the other guardians, together under a question mark; Pitch appearing next to them as a particle of sand grew into a cloud, reforming Sandy.

Tooth looked uncomfortable; Bunny, annoyed. North, for his part, did not immediately brush off the subject like he normally did and instead looked at MiM again thoughtfully.

"Perhaps you are correct, Sandy," North said, stroking his beard. "Maybe it is time we re-examine those moments. They might help us understand more about Jack. But I am afraid we can only tell you what we know."

Tooth was conflicted; she had been debating whether to view Jack's memories from that time by herself, since she knew Jack would never talk about it. She always managed to talk herself out of it with the reminder of how wrong it was; she was entrusted to protect memories from prying eyes, and that included her own. But now the Guardians were planning to relive the event anyways, and Tooth knew that Jack's memories could provide useful insight on whatever Jack was feeling.

"Actually, I think... I have a method that will let us hear it from Jack's side," Tooth said hesitatingly.

"You're not talking about those teeth, are you? You know those only hold childhood memories," Bunny said.

"Yes, Bunny, I am quite aware of how my teeth work, thank you very much!" Tooth snapped. "No, what I meant is... well, I think I'd better show you. It's over at Tooth Palace."

"Well, what are we waiting for then!? Let's go!" North said enthusiastically, pulling out one of his globes. "To Tooth Palace!" he shouted, throwing the globe on the ground. A portal appeared in front of them.

* * *

The group soon found themselves standing inside a small but intricate room inside Tooth Palace. Tooth had led them through several narrow passageways and a few locked doors before they finally arrived here, in a room filled with pedestals on which stood a wide variety of objects.

"This is the immortals room," Tooth said as she led the way to the center of the circle of pedestals. "It contains important memories from the lives of all the immortals."

"What!? You have all our memories locked up in some room!? I thought you only dealt with kids' memories!" Bunny was shocked and slightly horrified. North and Sandy were completely surprised too; in all their years, they had never even _heard_ of a room like this. With so many important memories, it was amazing that Tooth had managed to keep it secret for so long.

"I deal primarily with childhood memories," Tooth replied, not looking very comfortable with the way the other Guardians stared around the room. "But I also protect the memories of immortals. With such long lives, sometimes memories need to be restored. And sometimes giving an immortal one of their ancient memories will help spark a solution to a current problem. They're sort of like history books; they're meant for knowledge more than nostalgia. I have to keep them protected like the children's teeth, but I also have to keep them hidden. These memories can be very dangerous if they get into the wrong hands. That's why I need you guys to swear to _never_ tell anyone."

Sandy, the first to get over his shock, nodded respectfully. Eventually North and Bunny also managed to tear their attentions away from the pedestals to agree with Tooth's rule.

"So uh, how exactly do these things work?" Bunny asked, stepping closer to examine an object on one of the pedestals.

"Each immortal has an object relating to their powers or their personality. That object is what holds the memories," Tooth explained, flying over to a pedestal on the right side of the room. "See Bunny, this one's yours."

Bunny and the others surrounded the pedestal, staring down in wonder at the basket full of intricately decorated eggs on it.

"Each egg holds an important memory from your life," Tooth said as she turned away. "But we don't have time for everyone to see their own memories, we really shouldn't even be in here right now. Now let's see, Jack Frost... oh, yeah, here it is!"

Tooth floated to a pedestal near the front of the room, and off to the left. On it were tons of individual snowflakes floating restlessly across the pedestal, as if being moved around by a wind.

North and Sandy followed her, with Bunny trailing behind. Bunny kept glancing back at the egg basket, battling the curiosity of what his most important memories could be.

Before anyone could say anything, Tooth was speaking again as she reached out towards the snowflakes. "You can tell by the design of the snowflake which memory it holds. The one we're looking for should be right... here!" Tooth exclaimed as she caught one of the snowflakes in her hand. She pulled it off of the pedestal, giving everyone just enough time to see it glow blue before the memory appeared in their heads.


	2. Memories

"_Maybe we should get __back__," Jack Frost __told Baby Tooth__ as he __closed__ the window __to Sophie's room__, an abashed look on his face._

_The two were about to start flying back to the Warren when they heard a young girl's voice call, "Jack."_

North, Tooth, Bunny, and Sandy exchanged confused looks. What was going on?

_Jack stopped, looking around in confusion while Baby Tooth flitted in the air nervously. "Jack?" the voice called again._

"_Did you hear that?" Jack asked Baby Tooth, staring out across the land. _

"_Jack," the voice called urgently, and Jack took off towards it, Baby Tooth behind him._

_The voice continued calling as Jack and Baby Tooth followed it, eventually ending up in the middle of a forest. In the center of a small clearing stood a rotting bed frame, the source of the noise._

"Is that the entrance to Pitch's lair?" Tooth said incredulously, staring at the old rotted frame. Nobody else said anything, and the memory continued.

_Baby Tooth pulled on Jack's hoodie, trying to get him to turn back. "Don't worry, there's still time," Jack said distractedly as he walked towards the bed frame. Baby Tooth rolled her eyes but followed him._

_Under the bed frame was a hole, completely dark and seemingly bottomless. Jack broke away the rotting wood above the hole and stared down into it, trying to find the bottom._

"_Jack?" the voice called one more time, and Jack jumped in the hole, Baby Tooth behind him._

"That curiosity's gonna get him killed one day," Bunny remarked tonelessly.

_Jack and Baby Tooth found themselves in a massive cave. Baby Tooth tried again to get Jack to turn back, sensing danger. "Baby Tooth, come on, I have to find out what that is," Jack insisted as he ventured further in the cave._

_The sound of tweeting pulled Jack's attention to one of the large cages hanging from the ceiling. Inside were hundred of the baby tooth fairies trying in vain to escape._

Tooth gasped, staring in horror at the cages. "How _dare_ he?" she whispered, shocked that even Pitch would be so cruel to such innocent creatures.

"_Hang on guys, I'm gonna get you out, just as soon as-" "Jack," "-I can," Jack said looking again for the source of the voice. Baby Tooth twittered hurriedly, trying to get Jack to open the cages._

_Jack found mountains of tooth containers, holding countless memories, among which was presumably his. He dove into the pile, grabbing containers at random and checking the faces printed on the ends._

"_Looking for something?" a silky voice oozed from the shadows. Jack spun around, shooting ice from his staff before flying off towards the source of the voice. Pitch's laughter echoed off the walls._

The Guardians exchanged nervous looks. Even though they knew the outcome and knew Jack was alright now, this situation was terrifying.

"_Don't be afraid Jack," Pitch said as he strolled down a slanted corridor._

"_Afraid? I'm not afraid of you," Jack said as he fell against a wall._

"_Maybe not. But you are afraid of something."_

"_You think so, huh?"_

_Pitch turned around. "I know so. It's the one thing I always know. People's greatest fears," Pitch grinned at Jack. "Yours is that no one will ever believe in you." Pitch started walking toward Jack, who stepped back in shock. He had never told anyone that. Pitch laughed again as Jack fell through the floor and into the darkness._

Bunny shifted uncomfortably. He knew Jack didn't have any believers before, but that had never seemed to bother the fun-loving trouble maker before. What else was Jack hiding beneath the laughter?

"_And worst of all, you're afraid you'll never know why." Jack stood up, jumping away from the darkness and into another corridor, back against the wall in fear. "Why you? Why were you chosen to be like this?" _

It pained Tooth to know Jack had been left wondering for so long. She had never heard of an immortal losing their memories; it never even crossed her mind that Jack might need his.

_Pitch materialized in front of Jack, holding out a memory container. "But fear not. For the answer to that is right here." The container had a picture of a brown-haired boy with a mischievous grin. Jack stared at it, his face a mixture of fear and shock._

Sandy watched with interest. The only reason Jack originally agreed to help the Guardians was to regain his memories. But was he willing to trust Pitch to just give them to him, without a reason?

"_Do you want them Jack? Your memories?" Pitch grinned at the look of yearning on Jack's face. Jack reached out, about to touch it, when he seemed to reconsider. Pitch and the container disappeared, Pitch's laugh echoing in the shadows. Jack ran down the corridors, towards Pitch._

"_Everything you wanted to know, in this little box." Jack chased the shadows. "Why did you end up like this? Unseen. Unable to reach out to anyone." _

North watched the scene with mounting guilt. It wasn't until recently that he learned of Jack's attempted break-ins at his Workshop. How many times had Jack tried to get his attention only to be turned away? Jack was still a kid, and the Guardians were supposed to protect kids. But they had failed Jack for three hundred years.

"_You want the answers so badly. You want to grab them and fly off with them, but you're afraid of what the Guardians will think, afraid of disappointing them." Pitch's voice echoed off the walls, merged with the shadows surrounding Jack, confusing him. "Well, let me ease your mind about one thing: They'll never accept you. Not really."_

"_Stop it, STOP IT!" Jack screamed, trying to cover his ears with his hands. _

All of the Guardians stared in shock at Jack's reaction. Sure, they might not have been the most accommodating, but did Jack really think they didn't want him? Still? And did he really care that much about what they thought of him? Sure, it might have taken them a while, but the Guardians did eventually accept Jack. Didn't he know that?

"_After all, you're not one of them," Pitch said, materializing behind Jack._

"_You don't know what I am." Jack spun around, raising his staff to point at Pitch. _

"_Of course I do, you're Jack Frost!" Pitch mocked. "You make a mess wherever you go. Why, you're doing it right now," Pitch said as he tossed something at Jack. Instinctively, Jack caught the memory box that landed in his hands. His memory box. He stared at it in shock, and then, with dawning horror, he looked up at Pitch._

The Guardians watched the scene like one might watch a train wreck: horrified, but unable to look away. Their trepidation was only added to when they remembered what happened next.

"_What did you do?" Jack asked in horror._

"_More to the point Jack, what did you do?" Pitch grinned as he held open his arms, melting back into the shadows and laughing._

_Jack ran after him, shooting frost at him, before he realized he had lost Pitch. Jack turned around, only to find himself facing a locked door._

_He banged against it. "Baby Tooth!" he shouted in panic._

"_Happy Easter, Jack." Jack spun around, looking for Pitch when he stepped on something. Looking down, he could see broken eggshells littering the ground._

"_No," he said in shock, running down the trail towards the Guardians._

Nobody said anything. Maybe there just wasn't anything that could be said, not now, not after so many weeks had past. The Guardians knew Jack was impulsive and reckless; his curiosity was what allowed Bunny to capture him first, his irresponsibility what made them cautious of having Jack be a Guardian. Why had it never crossed their minds, of _course_ Jack wouldn't betray them on purpose.

_Jack found the Guardians in a small town in England, late and short one Baby Tooth._

_Tooth was furious. "Where's Baby Tooth? Oh Jack, what have you done?"_

"_That is why you weren't here?" North asked. "You were with Pitch instead?"_

"_No, listen, listen… I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to happen," Jack tried to explain._

Jack would never sabotage Easter at a time when it was so important, he would never betray Baby Tooth for his memories. All of this was so obvious in retrospect, but at the time they were all too hurt, too confused to listen to and explanation.

_Bunny hopped over. "He has to go," he said without hesitation._

_Jack was stunned. "What?"_

Sandy looked as surprised as Jack, staring at Bunny with a combination of confusion and accusation.

_Bunny looked heartbroken as he said, "We should never have trusted you. Easter is new beginnings, new life. Easter is about hope." He groaned. "And now it's gone."_

_Jack turned from Bunny to look at Tooth and North. They both turned away from him. It was exactly as Pitch had warned. The Guardians didn't want him around anymore._

Bunny, Tooth, and North had trouble watching the memory. They were ashamed now of what they had done, of turning away Jack when they needed each other the most. They had let their feelings get in the way, just as Jack had done when he entered Pitch's lair. And now they had to pay.

_Reaching into his pocket, Jack pulled out the little Russian doll North had given him in the Workshop. He stared at it for a long moment, then tossed the doll to the ground. Jack created a big gust of wind and then leaped in to the breeze. _

Sandy was frozen in shock as he watched Jack fly away, the others not even calling out to him, trying to stop him. Sandy's confusion morphed into rage as he glared accusingly at his fellow Guardians, none of who could meet his gaze.

_Soon Jack found himself on the top of a mountain in Antarctica, a place where it always snowed. A place where the blizzards caused by his mood mingled with the blizzards of nature, as indistinguishable as a teardrop in the rain._

_Jack ran to the edge of the cliff, ready to throw his memories off the edge, when he stopped. He looked down at the box in his hand, at the memories he had been waiting so long to find._

"_I thought this might happen," Pitch said suddenly. Jack looked up in shock and horror. When had Pitch gotten here? How did he know where to find him? It didn't matter; Jack found his surprise being quickly replaced by anger._

"_They never really believed in you. I was just trying to show you that. But I understand." Jack spun around throwing a powerful burst of ice from his staff and screaming with unbridled rage._

"_You don't understand anything!" he screamed, throwing more ice at Pitch._

_Pitch blocked Jack's frost with nightmare sand, frustration plain on his face. "I don't know what it's like to be cast out?" he screamed, throwing out more nightmare sand._

_Jack leaped in the air, screaming as he lashed out with his most powerful hit yet. Pitch blocked it with equally powerful sand, creating a cloud of sand and ice._

"_To not be believed in?" Jack spun around, only to find Pitch unarmed and seemingly defenseless. "To long for a family?" Jack seemed surprised by this sudden vulnerability, lowering his staff._

The Guardians were also surprised, but for different reasons. Pitch typically went with straight forward fear factors, preferring them to pity appeals. Unlike Jack, though, the Guardians remained wary, seeing Pitch's words as a trap.

"_All those years in the shadows, I thought no one else knows what this feels like. But now I see I was wrong," Pitch said, gesturing towards Jack. Jack stood from his defensive stance, as if seeing Pitch in a new light. _

The Guardians were nervous. Did Jack really believe Pitch? It was low, for Pitch to use Jack's fears against him like that.

"_We don't have to be alone, Jack. I believe in you," Pitch said as he began circling Jack, who seemed deep in thought. "And I know children will too." At this Jack looked up at Pitch, hope and longing written clearly on his face. "In me?"_

"_Yes! Look at what we can do," Pitch said as he gestured to the result of their fight. An ice sculpture made of spikes and darkened by nightmare sand._

"_What goes together better than cold and dark? We'll make them believe! We'll give them a world where everything, every thing is-"_

"_Pitch black?" Pitch froze, as if realizing his mistake._

"_And Jack Frost, too. They'll believe in both of us."_

"_No, they'll fear both of us. And that's not what I want," Jack said, turning away. "Now for the last time, leave me alone!" _

"_So what, what are you going to do, Jack?" Pitch asked acrimoniously. "Are you going to go back to the Guardians? You've already seen, they don't want you."_

_Jack stopped walking, but didn't turn around. He clenched his staff tight in his hands._

"_They're only using you, Jack. You can't possibly think that they'll ever care about you. They only want you to help defeat me. And if it wasn't for the Man in the Moon, the same Moon that ignored you for centuries, they never would have contacted you."_

_Jack didn't say anything, didn't try to argue any of what Pitch said, because it was true, wasn't it?_

"_If it wasn't for MiM, they would have continued ignoring you like they did for the past three hundred years. And after this battle, what makes you think they won't ignore you again? They don't like you, don't want you, they just want to use you. Why would they want a trouble-making, chaotic winter spirit, bringer of cold and death. Your powers are not good, Jack, and they know it. Why do you think they always left you alone, if it wasn't because you were a volatile teenager that they didn't want to have to deal with. The only kid in the world that they wouldn't protect. They've never helped you; why should you help them?"_

_Jack didn't say anything, didn't move. He had that same look on his face that he had when Bunny told him no one would ever believe in him; the look that suggested he wanted to argue, but knew Bunny was right. Pitch was right. The look that said he wanted to crack a joke, brush off the situation, but was running out of fun to hide behind._

The Guardians were frozen, horrified. They knew that they hadn't treated Jack very well before, but they never thought, never realized... They had never heard it all laid out like that, so plain, so awful. And the worst part was, Jack believed Pitch. What Pitch said about the past, about the neglect and abandonment, may have been correct, but now Pitch was telling Jack that the Guardians still didn't care about him. And Jack believed him. There was no evidence to suggest otherwise.

_Pitch finished his speeck. "If you want to back to them, then fine. You want to be left alone? Done! But before I go..."_

_Jack wheeled around in horror as he heard a familiar squeak. Clenched in Pitch's fist was Baby Tooth, struggling furiously. _

"_Baby Tooth!" Jack ran over to them, holding out his staff to fight even while his puffy red eyes suggested he didn't know what he was fighting for._

"_The staff, Jack!" Pitch said. Jack froze before looking down at his staff with a horror. "You have a bad habit of interfering. Now hand it over, and I'll let her go."_

_Baby Tooth tweeted desperately, shaking her head. Jack held up his staff again, but couldn't think of what to do. The Guardians may have abandoned him, but Baby Tooth was innocent, she had never done anything wrong. And it was Jack's fault that Pitch had her now. Jack lowered his staff, considering, as Pitch's fist tightened around Baby Tooth. He finally turned over his staff, offering it to Pitch. Pitch grabbed the staff, whose frost immediately gave way to black._

The Guardians were shocked once again. After everything Pitch had said, everything Jack thought about them, he was still willing to try and save Baby Tooth? To offer up his staff, the one constant in his life, presumably the source of his powers, for her?

"_Alright. Now let her go," Jack said, holding out his hand._

"_No," Pitch said dryly. Jack stared at him in horror, not expecting this betrayal. _

"_You said you wanted to be alone. So be alone!" Pitch screamed._

_Baby Tooth took this moment of distraction to stab Pitch's thumb with her beak. Pitch let out a cry of shock, hurtling Baby Tooth against the side of a mountain._

Tooth gasped at the same time that Jack screamed.

"_No!" Jack cried in horror, watching Baby Tooth slam into the mountain._

_He turned around just in time to see Pitch snap his staff in half, sending a shooting pain through his chest. With an anguished cry, Jack doubled over, only to be picked up and thrown into the same mountain as Baby Tooth by the nightmare sand._

Tooth froze in shock and pain. North looked away for a moment, an immense look of guilt clouding his face. Bunny and Sandy continued to watch the memory with mounting dread and fear.

_Jack hit the mountain hard, darkness clouding his vision as he began to fall._

_He let out another cry as he hit the bottom._

Tooth started crying. Sandy created images too fast for anyone to comprehend, not that anyone was paying attention.

_Pitch looked down at Jack, laughing as he threw the broken pieces of Jack's staff down with him. The staff was now as useless as Jack himself._

_Jack laid at the bottom of the crack in the mountain, his body aching all over. Eventually he pushed himself up off the ground, holding his head, when he heard a squeak._

The Guardians were astounded at both Jack's and Baby Tooth's resilience.

"_Baby Tooth!" Jack crawled over to her. "You alright?" Baby Tooth was shivering badly and her wings appeared to be broken. Jack tried to cup her in his hands, trying to warm her up, when she squeaked again._

_He looked down at her. She shivered __once more__, then sneezed violently. Jack sighed. "__Sorry, bad idea," he said, holding Baby Tooth away. "All I can do is keep you cold." He stared down at Baby Tooth, who was still shivering. "Pitch was right, I make a mess of everything." _

Nobody knew what to say to that. Jack was always so confident, so self assured. The Guardians knew that Jack wasn't happy all the time- nobody was, not even the Guardian of Fun. But they hadn't realized Jack had so little faith in himself, that he doubted himself at all. Sometimes, after a particularly harmful blizzard, Bunny questioned whether Jack was capable of guilt or remorse at all. Seeing him now, it was apparent that confidence was a cover up in the same way that fun was often a distraction, allowing Jack to forget about anything negative he was feeling.

_Baby Tooth stared at __Jack__ for a second __and shivered__, before getting an idea. She hopped out of Jack's hands and onto his jacket, crawling into the pocket. Jack sighed again and leaned against the side of the mountain, closing his eyes._

_Baby Tooth tweeted as a voice, the same voice from before, called out: "Jack." Jack shot upright, scurrying back in shock as his pocket, or rather, something inside his pocket, began to glow a brilliant gold._

_He pulled his memory container out of his pocket, Baby Tooth hopping next to it. She looked down at the box and then to Jack, nodding. Jack hesitated before reaching out, brushing his fingers along the top of the box._

_The memory faded._


	3. A New Outlook

"Hey, what's that? Where's the rest of the memory?" Bunny asked, looking frantic and irritated. "Where's the part where he finds Jamie, where his staff get's fixed, where everything gets better?"

"I was afraid this might happen," Tooth said, placing the snowflake back onto Jack's pedestal. "This is Jack's memory; it shows what Jack sees. When Jack watches his childhood memories, the memory becomes unstable. It can't show a memory inside of a memory, it doesn't work like that. There's probably another snowflake on here that shows what happen after that..."

All of the Guardians were riddled with guilt. They wanted to see the rest of the memory, but Tooth was having second thoughts about snooping through the memories of others. Just when she found the snowflake with the right memory, they were interrupted by Sandy. Sandy was creating sand pictures of a snowflake, Jack, and a clock. Sandy was also looking upset and angry, and refused to meet any of his friend's eyes.

"You're right Sandy, we should be getting back," North said heavily, sighing. "I want to be there when Jack wakes up. We should probably talk to him about this."

Nobody was sure what North meant when he said 'this,' and they certainly didn't know how to bring up Jack's memories, but they didn't want Jack to be alone either. They all needed to see that their friend was happy and alright, at least for now.

North threw down a globe and everyone filed through the portal silently.

* * *

What the Guardians found when they entered the main room of North's Workshop was not at all what they expected. The room was covered in ice, the floor and rails slippery. Several elves were frozen to their floor and were chattering excitedly as Phil the Yeti lumbered across the room, yelling something in Yetish. They heard laughter as Jack glided across the ice on one of the rails, just out of Phil's reach. Jack and Phil both froze when the Guardians walked through the portal, Phil looking irritated and Jack looking abashed.

"Oh, uh, hey guys," Jack began, hopping down off the railing. "What's going on? I thought you were all out, I didn't... Uh, this really isn't as bad as it looks like, I can get rid of all this ice, it's just-"

"Jack," North interrupted, "it's fine."

"Oh," Jack said, surprised. "Okay, then is something wrong? What's going on, why is everyone here?"

The Guardians hesitated, not sure where to start. Bunny looked away from Jack, opting to glare at the ice on the ground. North shifted uncomfortably, while the sand around Sandy floated anxiously. Finally, Tooth spoke up.

"Nothing's wrong, it's just..." she paused, looking for words. "We just... wanted to visit, is all," she finished lamely.

"Oh." Jack looked surprised again, but pleased. "You don't have any teeth to collect or anything?"

Tooth smiled, saying, "I've been working on spreading out the work load. My baby teeth know their parts of the schedule, I can trust them alone for a little while."

"Well great!" Jack said enthusiastically. "Because I just made an ice rink, and I was wondering if any of you wanted to go skating." Jack glanced at North nervously. "Oh, yeah, and North? I _might_ have frozen one of your rooms. But it's okay! I checked and there wasn't anything important in there, it was empty."

North smiled slightly in amusement. "It is okay, Jack. Where is this room? Let us go ice skating."

Jack beamed, his whole face lighting up with unmitigated joy. He had never had to learn how to hide his emotions from others; his face was as expressive as a child, his happiness as clear and pure.

Trust is fragile. The Guardians now knew this. It would take a long time for them to earn Jack's trust completely. But luckily, they had an eternity to try.

* * *

**This is the end of the story. The first story I post in over a year, and it's this. I hate writing action. And by action, I really mean anything with dialogue. I want to go back to abstract reflections on the relationships between characters. Actually, I probably will. This is probably the closest I will ever get to action, and the closest I will ever get to a happy ending. Or maybe I won't write any more. Writing is difficult. But there's so much unexplored angst potential with Jack! I couldn't resist! And so I end up with this. Whoops.**

**I just feel like the Guardians' relationships with Jack were never really developed all that well. Like, the only reason Jack initially joined them was to get his memories. I just thought it would take more than Jack becoming a Guardian for them to form lasting relationships.  
**


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